Politics

Lawyers to Niger’s overthrown president want regional court to reinstate him

Published

6 months ago

November 7, 2023

Over three months after being ousted as the President of Niger Republic, Mohamed Bazoum’s lawyers asked a West African regional court on Monday to order that he be reinstated.

Soldiers took over the country on July 26 and detained Bazoum, accusing him of not doing enough to stem the growing insecurity in the country.

His lawyers brought his case before the Community Court of Justice, which was established to make decisions on matters about the ECOWAS regional bloc. However, member states are not required to abide by its rulings, and there is no legal framework in place to make them binding.

Bazoum’s lawyers argued that his detention and overthrow violated his rights. Seydou Diagne, a member of the legal team, while speaking via video link from Dakar, the capital of Senegal, requested that the court in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, declare that “the brutal end of Bazoum’s government was a violation of his political rights.” Diagne stated that Bazoum ought to be released unconditionally and given back his position as president.

Additionally, according to the attorneys, his wife and son’s human rights were violated by his detention. The junta accused the former president of trying to flee with the assistance of accomplices, and as a result, Bazoum’s lawyers claimed they had not been able to communicate with him since October 20.

Aissatou Zada, an attorney for the Niger junta, argued that Bazoum, his wife, and their son had not been arbitrarily detained or placed under sequestration. He said the president was being held at home for his security, but otherwise, they were free to come and go as they pleased.

The Niger coup is one of eight military coups in West and Central Africa over the past three years.

Related Topics:#COUP #NIGER REPUBLIC Featured Mohamed Bazoum

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Politics

Burkina Faso investigating reports of northern killings

Published

8 hours ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A government spokesman has revealed that Burkina Faso is looking into reports that 223 people were killed by the Burkinabe army in two villages in the north in February.

The killing was first reported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), causing a rift between the junta-led West African state and some foreign media that published the report. The HRW report released on Thursday said that the military had executed residents of Nodin and Soro, including at least 56 children, as part of a campaign against civilians suspected of working with jihadist terrorists. The report was based on interviews with witnesses, members of civil society, and other groups.

Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, a spokesman for the government, said that HRW’s claims were “peremptory” and that the junta was not unwilling to look into the claimed crimes.

“An investigation has been launched into the killings in Nodin and Soro,” Ouedraogo said in a late-evening statement, quoting a statement from a regional prosecutor on March 1.

Since Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger’s militaries took over in a series of coups from 2020 to 2023, violence in the area has gotten worse. This is because of the ten-year fight with Islamist groups related to Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Attacks on Burkina Faso got much worse in 2023, with more than 8,000 people killed, according to the U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED.

Politics

S’Africa lengthens troop deployment in Mozambique, Congo DR

Published

3 days ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech that South Africa’s military would keep sending troops to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are both in the middle of wars.

The extension will leave 1,198 members of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) in eastern Congo for an unknown amount of time. They are there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force helping Congo fight rebel groups.

The statement also said that 1,495 members of the SANDF would keep working in Mozambique, where they have been since 2021 helping the government fight dangerous extremism in the north.

After two SANDF troops were killed and three were hurt by a mortar bomb in Congo in February, South Africa’s military operations abroad have been looked at more closely at home this year.

Meanwhile, the major opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance, said that Ramaphosa sent troops into a war zone without being ready.
Under the supervision of the UN, the SANDF has taken on many dangerous and difficult peacekeeping tasks over the years to help war-torn African countries stay stable and peaceful.

In 2003, South Africa was one of the first countries to send troops to Burundi to help the peace process. During the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peacekeeping mission in 2000, the SANDF led attempts to stabilize the country’s politics, rebuild and improve infrastructure, and train DRC troops.